


through the cracks in reverse

by blackkat



Series: reverse [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, F/M, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Gen, Humor, M/M, Of my own fanfiction even, Ridiculousness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-23 15:27:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9663536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Various AU/non-canon drabbles connected toreverse, featuring crack, crossovers, ridiculous ships, and very little in the way of sense.





	1. How it could have happened - Sakumo/Orochimaru

**Author's Note:**

> These are not necessarily part of _reverse_ 's storyline; they're mostly cracky drabbles inspired by asks on my Tumblr. Think of them as possibilities, possible futures, ways things could have gone, and bits that were discarded on the cutting room floor in favor of better plots and more sense.

(From an ask [and one of the things that eventually led to the Sakumo & Kushina resurrection]: Hahaha omg but with the possible reviving of Sakumo in reverse literally all I can think about is Kakashi's reaction to the OroSaku. "Dad no. Why. That is a dangerous missing nin you are making out with, right in front of me, and I haven't killed nearly enough people to deserve this dAD STOP-")

 

“Angel,” Sakumo says dreamily, smiling up at the man hovering over him.

Orochimaru blinks at him. Blinks again. He glances over at Kabuto, who would look equally nonplussed if he allowed himself any facial expressions beyond ‘smug’, and says, “Add hallucinations to the list of side effects, Kabuto, thank you.”

Kakashi, hovering off to the side, is so utterly horrified he can’t even speak. 

“I’m not hallucinating,” Sakumo says mildly, pushing himself up on one elbow, his eyes still on Orochimaru. “But there aren’t a lot of ways to wake up once you’re dead, and I have to say, this is just about the best one I could imagine.”

Orochimaru eyes him the way anyone else might a brightly colored snake. “It is,” he finally says, too flat to be a question. 

Sakumo offers up a cheerful, easygoing smile. “You’re just as pretty as I remember you being, Orochi-kun. More, probably.”

Surprise flickers over Orochimaru’s features for a flash before it’s buried. “You remember me.”

“Of course I do.” Sakumo’s smile doesn’t waver, but his eyes are even warmer. “I’ve never served with a better shinobi. You were incredibly talented. And it’s hard to forget a face that lovely.”

“Oh no,” Jiraiya mutters from the back of the room. “That’s it, he’s gone. Done. Loyalty assured. Goddamn, Hatake. I’m remembering why I  _hate_  you.”

“Shut your mouth, Jiraiya,” Orochimaru orders without so much as shifting his gaze from Sakumo’s, but there’s color high up on his cheeks, all too visible against the paleness of his skin.

Kurama’s eyebrows have taken up residence somewhere near his hairline. He glances over at Kakashi, who’s mouthing something through his mask that might possibly be  _Dad no Dad what are you doing_ , and says pointedly, “You know, if  _you_  were as smooth as him, it would have saved us a hell of a lot of grief.”

Kakashi buries his face in his hands and doesn’t answer. 


	2. Possible futures - KakaKura + Shisui

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an ask: i have a headcanon, that shisui is The Weird Uncle to the kids. but it's fine, because he's fun so they adore him. kurama CAN'T STAND IT, but cannot do much, because the brats adore him and would get sad if he broke his neck. so Kurama The Grumpy puts up with him, grumpily. It is finally yugito with fuu, who after spending too much time with their role model kushina, figure out that the best way to get away with trouble, is to blame uncle shisui. because grumpy is biased and if his kids say that these destroyed buildings are uchiha’s fault, then it doesn’t matter that shisui is on the mission across two countries - those destroyed buildings are the uchiha’s fault, somehow.

“Captain! Captain, save me!”

It probably says something about Kakashi’s life that this is far from the first time he’s been jumped by a green blur and dragged into an alley. Or maybe it just says something about Shisui. 

“…From?” Kakashi asks politely after several seconds in which Shisui does nothing except twitch at shadows and stare wide-eyed at any signs of movement. 

At that, however, Shisui whips his head back around to look at Kakashi and hisses, “From  _your boyfriend_ , who else? He’s threatening to eat me again!”

Judging by Shisui’s expression, it was definitely not in the fun way that he and Kurama tried last night. Shisui wouldn’t be nearly as alarmed if it was. Or maybe he would; with Shisui it’s sometimes kind of hard to tell. 

Still, given the way Kurama was sending one of the more flirtatious Suna nin murderous looks yesterday - he’s so cute, really, though no one ever believes Kakashi when he says that - they’re undoubtedly monogamous at this point, so Kakashi drags his thoughts away from sex with some effort (and reluctance) and asks, “Oh? Seriously, this time?”

“He’s  _always serious!”_ Shisui flails emphatically at him. “That’s why he’s  _so fucking terrifying_ , okay? And this time he’s  _even more serious_  because he thinks I’m the one who crushed Gaara’s pillow fort!”

It takes effort not to wince. That is - that is probably the best way to die, where Kurama is concerned. Kurama grouchily adores all his kids, and Naruto in particular, but one sad look from Gaara and he would cheerfully depose Kage and level villages to make the kid smile again. And when Gaara found his pillow fort in ruins? There were actual  _tears_. 

Shisui is already dead; he just doesn’t know it yet. Or, well, he probably does, given the horrified paranoia on his face. 

“Did you?” Kakashi asks carefully, because as quasi-stepfather it’s probably something he should do. 

Shisui gives him a withering look. “I was in  _northern Water Country_  and just got back ten minutes ago. Kurama ambushed me at the gate! How is that logical?!”

Kakashi ignores the semi-hysterical note in Shisui’s voice. “Did you tell Kurama that it couldn’t have been you?”

Apparently not satisfied with this reaction, Shisui presses his hands over his face with a low, theatrical wail and slumps back against the wall, sliding down it to bury his head in his knees. “I’m  _doomed_. Yugito and Fuu told him it was me.”

…Yeah, Kakashi would assume ‘doomed’ is an understatement. The kids could insist that the sky was green and Kurama would probably start gutting anyone who argued. In this? Shisui has no chance. 

“I told you not to warn that boy off,” he says mildly. “Yugito is good at holding grudges.”

“He was a  _scumbag_ ,” Shisui protests without raising his head. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Stand still and  _die_ , Uchiha!” a low voice snarls, heavy with menace, and with a shriek like a little girl Shisui bolt to his feet, sprints for the end of the alley, and disappears in a whirl of leaves. 

“Hi, honey,” Kakashi drawls, reaching out and hooking his fingers in Kurama’s sash as he makes to stalk past. Kurama goes with it, even if he rolls his eyes half a second before Kakashi kisses him. 

“Sap,” he accuses, even though he doesn’t try to push him away. 

“Mm.” Kakashi steals another kiss, amused by the way Kurama leans up into it across their height difference. Not that he’ll  _say_ that - he likes his kidneys where they’re supposed to be. “Have fun hunting. Should I bring home sushi for dinner?”

“Get extra,” Kurama advises, sinking back down to stand flat-footed. There’s amusement in the curve of his mouth, and when Kakashi brushes deep red hair back behind his ears, it deepens and softens. “Momiji and Fuji were going to swing by.”

“Your wish is my command,” Kakashi says grandly, and Kurama huffs and punches him in the stomach. Lightly, which from him is the equivalent of a confession of love, so Kakashi takes it in the spirit it’s intended. 

“Stay out of trouble, asshole. I’ve got an Uchiha to skin,” he growls, and Kakashi doesn’t even try to hide the way his breath catches at that tone. Bedroom or battlefield, it gets to him every time. 

When Kurama goes to step away, Kakashi very pointedly reels him back in, curving his hands around his waist. “Are you sure you have to go  _now_? The kids are with my dad, aren’t they? We’d have the house to ourselves.”

Kurama hesitates, looking torn, and then eyes him suspiciously. “You’re not just trying to keep me from killing Brainwash Boy, are you?”

“I would never,” Kakashi promises solemnly, and it’s more or less the truth. Shisui getting his neck broken would make the kids sad, so he doesn’t have to worry about Kurama  _actually_ killing him. Probably. And it’s good that Kurama and Shisui are friends. 

Besides, this is entirely selfish. Not that Kakashi thinks anyone would blame him - Kurama is one of the most gorgeous things he’s ever seen, and he’s very interested in all the possibilities of sex. Kakashi is a lucky, lucky man. 

“…Fine,” Kurama huffs, and there’s a sly smirk starting to curl his mouth. He steps closer, tugging the zipper of Kakashi’s flak jacket down in a long, slow slide that somehow manages to be sexy enough to short-circuit Kakashi’s brain. “I’ll let you distract me.  _Just_  this once.”

Kakashi swallows, hooks an arm more tightly around Kurama’s waist, and calls up a shunshin. 

Shisui had better appreciate all the sacrifices he makes for the sake of his team. 


	3. Possible future - Harry Potter crossover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an ask: Kurama as the ultimate Mother Hen is so dangerous tho, it makes me want to cross over him with ALL the sad kids…… Voldemort summons a demon. Gets Kurama. Gets punched in the face. Kurama sees the TORTURED KID TIED TO A TOMBSTONE AND THE DEAD KID ON THE GROUND. Kurama goes ballistic.

When Voldemort said _demon_ , Harry will admit he was expecting something more along the lines of what the Muggles pictured—red skin, horns, cloven hooves, pointy tail.

What Voldemort summoned instead is a short, grumpy-looking man in strange clothes, who looks the furthest thing from happy to have landed in a graveyard at midnight surrounded by Death Eaters.

It’s ever so slightly reassuring that Voldemort looks just as taken aback as Harry feels.

“And who might you be?” Voldemort asks, lowering his wand slightly, eyes narrowed and assessing.

The man—demon?—stares at Voldemort for a long moment, looking supremely unimpressed, and then glances down at the ring of runes beneath his feet and snorts derisively. “Who the hell taught you seals, asshole? I've seen toddlers who can do better.”

Harry decides he likes this man, just for putting that particular expression on Voldemort’s face. He snorts before he can help it, and the man twitches. He spins, and dark eyes land on Harry instantly. They go wide, then narrow sharply, and after a long second the stranger turns his head, gaze falling on Cedric’s still form.

His nostrils flare, and the faintest edge of a bloody-black glow creeps into the air around him, limning his body with eerie light. Something crawls up Harry's spine, trepidation and horror and the screams of his lizard brain suddenly realizing he’s a mouse tied up in front of the world’s biggest tiger. The weight of the unexpected fear makes it hard to breathe, and Harry wants to crawl away, push back against the headstone, but—

The man isn’t looking at him anymore. He’s turned back to Voldemort, and in a voice that rumbles like a massive predator’s growl he demands, “What the fuck do you want?”

Voldemort runs his fingers lightly over his wand, and when he looks the man over his expression falls somewhere between covetous and hungry. “I summoned a fell beast of malice and hatred. Are you that beast, then?”

The man scoffs, folding his arms over his chest, and it should look ridiculous with Voldemort over a head taller than him, but somehow Harry's mind keeps insisting that this stranger is a lot more dangerous than the Dark Lord. “Yeah, that’s me, but your information’s outdated. I don’t do that anymore. So kindly fuck off—I still need to make dinner, and you're screwing up my schedule.”

Harry can just see the Death Eaters trading bewildered glances like they're not entirely sure what they should be doing. Not that Harry blames them—this is definitely not going the way he would have expected.

A hint of cool anger is starting to slide into Voldemort’s expression. He draws himself up straight, grip tightening visibly on the handle of his wand, and says, “I have provided a sacrifice, beast. Your kind enjoy such things, yes? Tender virgins, pure of heart?” A flick of one pale hand encompasses Harry, still tied to the gravestone. “For your service, he is yours.”

What happens next is almost too fast to catch. There's a snarl, full of rage, and like a snake uncoiling to strike the stranger whips forward, slamming a fist square into Voldemort’s nose-less face. The Dark Lord gives a loud yelp that’s entirely undignified, reeling back and tripping over the hems of his robes to land flat on his back.

“First off,” the man snarls, leaning over him, “it’s _Uzumaki Kurama_. And second, _like fuck_ anything you ever say will be enough to make me _kill a kid_.” He gives a grin that’s somehow more terrifying than any other expression could be, and as he looms over the frozen Voldemort his teeth are lengthening, sharpening into dagger-like points. The red-black glow writhes, solidifies, and the man starts to change.

It’s not any Animagus shift Harry has seen before, is nothing like Lupin’s transformation. This is a smooth slide between forms, cloaked in a power that Harry can actually feel, and suddenly a massive creature is towering above him, fur like blood in the moonlight. Nine tails whip the air, and strong jaws gape in a hungry grin. Right between his teeth, purple and black light spins into an orb, as bright as fire, and the man-turned-monstrous-fox growls, “You're first,” right into Voldemort’s face and lets it go. 

Violet and ebony light consumes the world, and all Harry can do is cling to the ropes holding him and pray.

“Hey,” a gruff voice says, and it could be a minute later or an hour. A hand settles on Harry's shoulder, not shaking, just resting, and the touch of human skin makes him open his eyes. It’s dark, far darker than it was with all the fires and wand-light extinguished, but in the moonlight Harry can still see that hardly anything is left of the graveyard. The marble angel of death is the only statue that remains, and even it’s been halfway destroyed, scythe vanished and one wing gone.

Harry doesn’t look for bodies, but—there are strange shapes too small to be graves, scattered across the grass.

“You okay?” the man asks, then, “Fuck, hang on, you can't see in the dark, right?” Another whisper of power, strangely tangible, and fire flickers to life in midair, hanging above their heads. It casts red hair into sharp relief, dances in equally red eyes and off dark skin before it settles, and the man leans forward, lifting one hand to reveal a hand tipped with long, strangely pointed nails. “I'm going to cut you loose, but these are sharp, so don’t move, okay?”

“Alright,” Harry manages, and is glad it comes out steady. “Er, did you…eat Voldemort?”

“What, the bastard who misplaced his nose?” The man sounds faintly distracted as he leans around Harry. “Fuck no, I wouldn’t give myself indigestion like that. I vaporized him. Don’t tell me he didn’t deserve it, if just for his fashion sense—Orochimaru is obsessed with snakes too, but at least he’s got some flair.”

Harry is more confused now than he was five minutes ago, but he can feel the ropes give as his hands come free, and that makes the world feel just a little brighter. Not that it needs much help— _vaporized_ is just about the best word he’s ever heard used in relation to Voldemort.

“Thank you,” he says, pulling his wrists forward to rub at them. “Really, _thank you_.”

The man smiles, a little crooked but mostly warm. “Don’t mention it, kid. Now, where’d he snatch you from? I think Kakashi can handle the kids long enough for me to get you home.”

For a moment, Harry hesitates over an answer, but the man is definitely not a Muggle. “Hogwarts. We were—” It hurts to think of Cedric. “We were Champion in the Triwizard Tournament, but the Cup was a Portkey and brought us here.”

The man’s eyes fall on Cedric’s body, and his expression goes grimly tired. “And what are the odds of this Cup taking you back, too?”

Harry doesn’t have much of an idea how Portkeys actually work, but it seems like a safe enough bet. “Decent,” he says, then takes the hand that’s offered and lets the stranger pull him to his feet. “Er, sir—”

“Kurama,” he interrupts. “I'm Kurama. Come on, if we wait too long—”

The ring of runes lights up with silver brilliance, the same way it did just before Kurama appeared. There's a yelp, a tumble, a thud, and another yelp, and then a voice cries, “Ow ow ow, Fū-nee, get _off_!”

“Hmph!” One body untangles itself from the mass on the ground, and a young woman staggers to her feet, then leaps lightly over the other figures to land on a chunk of stone. It’s not a jump a human should have been able to make without a Levitation Charm, but _she_ doesn’t seem to know that, and Harry is too distracted by lots and lots of uncovered skin to tell her otherwise. And…is that _fishnet_?

Beside him, Kurama sighs, sounding extremely put-upon.

“Kurama-nii!” the woman cries, leaping down from the stone and lunging to wrap her arms around the man’s chest. “You disappeared and we were worried!”

Kurama rolls his eyes, but he loops an arm around her shoulders and hugs her back. “So you came _after_ me? I thought you brats had slightly more sense than that, Fū.”

“I recreated the summoning circle and reversed it!” another says cheerfully, and a blond boy a little older than Harry bounces across the stones to join them, the remaining three right behind him. “Gaara carved it into the floor so we can go back at any time, too.”

“Great, now we’re going to have to redo the kitchen. _Again_.” But despite the grumpy tone, Kurama ruffles blond hair, then glances at the slim redhead and asks, “Did you at least carve it in _shallowly_?”

The redheaded boy—Gaara, clearly—nods, but doesn’t stop walking, fitting himself right up against Kurama’s side without pausing. Kurama sighs and drapes an arm over his shoulders, then looks at the tall woman with a long blonde braid, and the second redheaded man behind her.

“Yugito I would expect this from,” Kurama says dryly. “Nagato, though? I thought you were better than this.”

The eldest of the group, who looks even older than Kurama, just smiles wryly. “I assumed you would prefer that they have adult supervision wherever they ended up,” he answers, “and Kushina isn’t supposed to home for another hour. They wouldn’t wait.”

“Kushina would just make things worse,” Kurama says sourly, then casts an assessing look at them man and asks, “How are you feeling?”

Nagato's strange purple eyes widen, and when Kurama tips his head at Cedric’s body they fill with understanding. He drops to one knee, holding out a hand over Cedric’s still chest, and glances up at Harry through a veil of red hair. “Did it happen long ago?”

Harry has no idea what time it is, and he’s not overly comfortable suddenly being the recipient of five steady stares, but he takes a breath. “Er, maybe an hour?” It feels like it should be longer, but he doesn’t think it was.

Nagato nods, rising to his feet again. “Simple enough,” he murmurs, then presses his hands together and closes his eyes. Like with Kurama, a purple glow limns him, filling the graveyard with eerie shadows, and he murmurs something Harry can't quite make out. With a low rumble, a gate shaped like a face with massive teeth rises from the ground, then groans open.

Half an instant later, Cedric takes a gasping breath and his eyes fly open as his body arches, suddenly, violently alive. He jerks up, coughing hard, and Harry can't stop himself from lunging for him, sliding an arm behind his shoulders to hold him up.

“What— _how_?” he demands in bewilderment, staring up at the man who very literally raised the dead and called it _simple enough_.

Nagato isn’t paying attention, though; he’s swaying on his feet, even paler than before, and Kurama is halfway holding him up, though he doesn’t look too concerned.

“Our dimension works a little differently, kid,” Kurama says, and that’s wry too. “So where’s the Cup? If no one noticed that asshole snatching you, I think I need to give them a piece of my mind.”

Yugito makes a catlike sound of amusement. “Another little brother,” she says, and when Harry blinks at her in confusion she just smirks at him, though it’s the furthest thing from a cruel expression.

Fū laughs, bright and cheerful, and crouches down to offer Harry a smile. “Nice to meet you!” she says.

And despite the weirdness, despite the terror and horror and the very strange end to the day, Harry isn’t lying at all when he smiles back and says, “Yeah. Same.”


	4. Background nonsense - Fugaku/Hiashi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For various asks all revolving around the addictive ridiculousness of Fugaku/Hiashi.

Fugaku's head hasn’t hurt this badly since Minato's bachelor party.

(It’s possible that thought should be warning enough, given how Fugaku woke up the morning after _that_ disaster, but hangovers aren’t exactly conducive to logical thought.)

He remembers—if vaguely—heading for the bar after Mikoto finished her explanation of why second chances and resurrected lost loves meant that she was ending their amicable, if less than blissful, marriage. Not that Fugaku is overly upset—marrying your best friend from childhood is lovely in theory, but results in rather too much sexual frustration when one feels a greater attraction to other men than one’s wife—but the mere _thought_ of the Clan Elders’ collective reaction is more than enough to drive even the hardiest man to drink.

Fugaku would be the first to admit that while he is a hardy man, he’s not _that_ hardy, and his wife leaving him for another woman is aggravating, if only conceptually.

(Of course, as Mikoto pointed out with all the mercilessness one would expect from a former ANBU captain, if Minato had reappeared, unattached and open to a relationship, it would have been Fugaku doing the dumping the instant he got Mikoto alone.)

Still. Being abandoned doesn’t sit easily, even if intellectually Fugaku is quite aware that Mikoto isn’t actually going anywhere. He’d beaten a swift retreat to the nearest jounin bar and settled in to drink his way through a good portion of their stock. And then…

And then _what_?

He pries his eyes open with an effort, squinting against the slanting light of an unfamiliar room. His sense of direction says those windows are west-facing, which means it’s headed towards afternoon. Gods, but how much did he manage to _drink_ last night? And…this is most certainly not his bedroom, so—

The dark head resting on his arm groans, shifting slightly, and Fugaku winces at the pins-and-needles sensation of blood rushing back into his limb. Then, belatedly, he realizes what a companion in bed _means_ , and that hair is slightly browner than Mikoto's ink-black, if almost as long. It’s _not_ Mikoto, because the body is larger, a man’s muscular build rather than his former wife’s sleeker one, and he can feel a hint of stubble against his skin.

Fugaku takes a careful breath, steeling himself, and reaches out to carefully brush some of that dark hair back. At the same moment, his unexpected partner rolls over, and pale, nearly-white eyes flutter open.

Hyuuga Hiashi, Fugaku thinks, and it’s possible there's a note of hysteria to it. Oh _gods_.

Hiashi stares at him for a long moment, clearly just as startled as Fugaku, and then shifts enough to get an elbow beneath himself and push up a little.

“…Uchiha,” he allows after a second. “It appears we had rather too much to drink last night.”

“Not enough,” Fugaku mutters, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until starbursts bloom behind his eyelids. Hells, but Mikoto is _never_ going to let this go. Not because they're technically still married—she made it clear that would only last until the correct papers could be signed—but because she’s the only living soul to know about the massive, belligerent crush he’d had on the Hyuuga heir as a genin.

Of course, Fugaku is an Uchiha, and therefore anyone outside the clan would probably find his actions more closely resembling infinite loathing than a crush, which Fugaku was absolutely fine with both then and now.

Things are coming back in bits and pieces now. The bar, Hiashi drinking with his old team in the corner, and then drinks together when the night wore on, and then—

Well. Given that he and Hiashi are both naked, Fugaku can guess.

“Oh, _hells_ ,” Hiashi says suddenly, and flops back down onto his back on the pillows, draping an arm over his eyes. “Tsume saw us leave together. Tsume _knows_.”

For a moment Fugaku can't think how that’s relevant. Then, as a thought occurs to him, he chokes, twitching away from Hiashi. “You—you and _Inuzuka_?”

Hiashi’s pale eyes go wide, and he blanches. “What? _No_! Of course not, we’re just friends! And beyond that, I think Shibi would _gut_ me.”

Fugaku makes a face, both at calling the Inuzuka woman a friend and the idea of her and Aburame. There are lots of things Fugaku has never needed or wanted to know about his Academy classmates, and who they go to bed with is a very large percentage.

Hiashi must see, because he snorts softly. “Loosen up, Uchiha. Just because they don’t confirm to your standards as Clan Heads doesn’t make it wrong.”

“You do realize the irony of _you_ telling me to loosen up,” Fugaku retorts, but despite himself his eyes are drawn to Hiashi’s bared chest. Before the mission to retrieve Killer Bee, Fugaku hadn’t seen him in anything but his voluminous robes in years. He’s leaner than they make him look, broad across the shoulders and still sporting the musculature of an active shinobi.

There's a dark bite already purpling on the line of his long neck, and Fugaku can't quite tear his eyes away from it.

Not seeming to notice his straying attention, Hiashi makes a sound of quiet amusement and stretches, and Fugaku's mouth goes truly dry at the sight. “I realize it, yes, but I've recently come to the understanding that the world will not crumble if I allow myself to live.”

They certainly lived last night, if Fugaku's patchy memories are to be believed. He has a flash of Hiashi on his stomach with Fugaku on top of him, reaching back desperately to grasp at Fugaku's hip as he tried to form more than fractured words, and—

Fugaku swallows hard, and manages to keep his voice steady enough to ask, “Inuzuka wisdom?”

Hiashi drops his arm, and the smile he’s wearing is faintly bittersweet, but there’s a pained sort of peace in his eyes as he meets Fugaku's gaze. “Hizashi’s,” he corrects, and it’s somewhere between sad and fond. “Though I think we both forgot somewhere along the way.”

Fugaku knows very well what that’s like, and he sighs before he can help it, reaching up to rub his forehead. He and Mikoto used to talk about love, even though they knew they’d never feel anything beyond platonic love for each other, and Fugaku can remember telling her to take the chance if she ever found it again. The Uchiha don’t love easily, but when they do, it’s a powerful thing, and well worth upsetting the Elders over.

With that in mind, Fugaku doesn’t try to hide the way his eyes sweep down over Hiashi’s body, right to the edge of the slipping sheet. When he glances back up, the old sadness has faded, and Hiashi is watching him with a heated sort of amusement. “Really, Uchiha?” he asks, though he makes no move to resist when Fugaku leans over him. “I didn’t think one-night stands were supposed to indulge in morning sex.”

“What happened to loosening up?” Fugaku complains, even as he slides his fingers into Hiashi’s long hair and angles his head for a deep, lazy kiss.

As they break apart, Hiashi laughs, and it’s breathless enough to make Fugaku's want just that much deeper. “I can't have you think I'm easy, Uchiha,” he retorts.

Fugaku snorts, sliding fully on top of the other man. One of Hiashi’s arms loops around his lower back, and a leg drapes lazily over his, sliding them together in _very_ interesting ways. “Then you shouldn’t have let me pick you up in a bar in the first place, Hyuuga.”

One elegant brow arches, only for the expression to be lost the moment Fugaku's hands find their way under the sheet. Hiashi’s head falls back, breath catching in his throat, but an instant later the leg hooked over Fugaku's tightens, and in a blur Hiashi flips them over, coming out of the roll sitting astride Fugaku's hips. He’s smirking, and Fugaku is recalling exactly how it feels to want to punch someone and kiss them at the same time.

“I think you're forgetting exactly who did the picking up last night, Uchiha,” he says archly. “Really, the way you were throwing yourself at me, you're lucky I didn’t—”

Fugaku flips them again, and feels no remorse for shoving Hiashi’s face into the pillow.


	5. Background nonsense - Zabuza/Hayate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aka "that shouldn't be a ship at all but people on Tumblr made me do it". For various prompts/discussions/enablers that can mostly be summed up as "Of course it's a ship you wrote it." *headdesk*

“Hey,” a gruff, familiar voice says from behind Tsunade's barstool. “The firecracker said you’re a pretty good medic.”

Tsunade blinks and turns, raising a brow at the sight of the Kiri swordsman looming behind her. “Firecracker?” she asks, then realizes there's only one person he could be referring to and snorts. “You call him that to his face?”

She can just make out the sharp slash of Zabuza’s grin behind the bandages covering the lower half of his face. “Fuck yeah. It got me laid once, I'm not about to _stop_ using it.”

Tsunade has to laugh at that, tipping her head at the empty stool beside her. “I think you probably got laid in spite of it, Momochi. What do you want?”

Zabuza chuckles, low and rumbling, as he sinks down into the offered seat and waves a hand to head the bartender off. “I need a medic. Preferably a good one.”

“ _Good_?” Shizune splutters from where she’s staked out a table with several other kunoichi, including the auburn-haired Kiri woman, a white-haired chuunin from Kusa, a Hyuuga woman, and a pair of Inuzuka twins with identical nin-dogs. There's a clatter as she pushes to her feet in indignation. “Tsunade-sama is the _best_ —”

Tsunade gives her a mild look, and Shizune’s mouth snaps shut. With a grumble, she subsides into her seat, glaring daggers at Zabuza’s back.

Zabuza, of course, doesn’t seem to notice beyond a faint widening of his grin, and he slouches back against the counter, elbows braced on top of the bar. His dark eyes are fixed on Tsunade, patient in the way of a predator who knows with certainty it’s going to make a kill.

Tsunade meets his stare, unflinching. “I’m a medic,” she says, and can feel the wry, regretful twist to her mouth at those words. Damn Kurama, anyway. “Never good enough, entirely, but what can I help you with? Are you going to bleed out or can I finish my drink first?”

It’s not quite relief that slips into Zabuza’s gaze, but it’s something very much like it. “Nah,” he says, carefully careless in a way that Tsunade has seen all too many times in Jiraiya when he’s pretending (badly) that he doesn’t have feelings. “It’s not for me, and you can take your time. I'm trying to get a good match in with this sword brat but he keeps coughing up blood and interrupting our spars. Fix it and I’ll pay your tab for a night.”

“Coughing blood?” Tsunade repeats, mind immediately jumping ahead into diagnoses and possible complications. “Only when he’s exerting himself, or all the time?”

“Most of the time,” Zabuza says, and he’s still watching her, but this time the satisfaction is a lot clearer. “He’d be a decent challenge if he wasn’t fucking sick. It’s annoying.”

“Oh dear gods.” The Kiri kunoichi, apparently in the middle of getting another round for her table, slaps a hand over her eyes. “Fuck you, Momochi, get that damned expression off your face. I'm _not_ going through this again. It’s a fucking shipwreck, watching you moon.”

“Fuck off, Terumī,” Zabuza retorts, but before he can get any more out, his eyes snap towards the door. “Gekkō,” he says, rising to his feet like a lion about to lunge for a gazelle. “Just in time.”

The teenager regards him warily, but approaches obligingly nevertheless, stifling a small cough into one fist and bowing to Tsunade. “Tsunade-sama, sorry to interrupt. Momochi said—”

Without waiting for him to finish, Tsunade catches him by the back of his flak jacket and tugs him upright, spinning him in place as she casts an assessing eye over his pallor and the heavy dark rings under his eyes. “Chronic cough? And it gets worse when you're exerting yourself?”

“Er…yes?” Hayate casts a helpless glance at Zabuza, clearly bewildered, but the Kiri nin just relaxes back into his seat with a grin. “I—I was born with it, but it’s not too bad—eep!”

Rolling her eyes, Tsunade presses a glowing hand against his chest. “You’ve got weak lungs, which is easy enough to fix. Then I can do a few tests and figure out just what’s actually wrong with you. Now hold still. Shark-face might try to eat me if I mess this up, and I'm a little tipsy.”

Hayate goes about four shades paler—impressive, given his normal complexion—and Zabuza makes a sound of deep offence. “You and Red are related, aren’t you?” he demands.

Tsunade gives him a mean smile. “You bet we are.”

With a huff, the swordsman subsides, muttering something under his breath. Tsunade ignores him, catching Hayate by the arm as he tries to wiggle away, and says pointedly, “I'm getting free drinks out of this, kid. Stand still. Don’t you want to be able to finish a kata without coughing up half your organs?”

Hayate stops, though he shoots Zabuza a fairly bewildered look. “But— _why_?” he asks.

Mei, in the middle of collecting her drinks, snorts very loudly. “Because he wants in your pants,” she says mercilessly. “He’s attracted to swordsmanship. My advice? Drop the sword and take up knitting.”

There's a flush creeping up Hayate’s cheeks, and he gives Zabuza a startled, wide-eyed look even as the other swordsman bolts to his feet with a poorly-contained snarl. “ _Terumī_!”

Mei smiles brilliantly, picks up her tray, and dodges the swing Zabuza takes at her as she waltzes back to her table.

Tsunade just laughs. 


	6. How it could have happened - Kurama/Shisui

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an ask: Could you ship Shisui/Kurama? I kind find it funny with Shisui that still thinks Kurama pretty and run away everytime Kurama is around and everyone betting on how long Shisui last until confessing and maybe Kurama will inherit Naruto oblivious-ness and doesn't notice anything and the children and foxes that trying matchmaking them
> 
> (What happened is basically an AU where Kurama met Shisui in chapter 3-4 instead of Kakashi.)

 Leaving the ANBU to deal with the bodies, Kurama turns to where the bound little girl is still sitting, covered by his shirt. The fight was quiet, but for her sake he hopes she passed out rather than listening to it. The kid can't be more than four, if that, and Kurama remembers the orphans Kaguya’s forces left behind. He’s dealt with enough traumatized kids for one lifetime, thanks.

Futilely, Kurama wipes his gory left hand on a clump of grass, then gives it up as hopeless and simply tucks it a little behind him. With his clean hand he reaches out and pulls the dark cloth off the girl’s head, and when wide, terrified eyes snap to him immediately he gives her the gentlest smile he can muster.

 _What would the brat do?_ he thinks a little desperately. _Damn it, how would Naruto handle this? Think!_

“Hey,” he says softly. “You're okay now. They're never going to be able to scare you again. You're safe.”

There's a click of metal against porcelain, and Kurama and the girl both glance up to find the ANBU pulling off his green-streaked mask. The curly black hair had already given away that it was someone entirely unfamiliar, and seeing his face doesn’t give any hints—this isn’t someone either Kushina or Naruto knew.

“Hello,” the ANBU offers, smiling at the girl, and it’s a little charming, a little silly. “Your dad sent me to find you. He got really worried when you didn’t turn up.”

Thankfully, the girl’s terror is easing, even if it isn’t disappearing. She glances from the ANBU to Kurama with a few more tears cascading down her cheeks, but she doesn’t look like she’s about to break, and Kurama supposes that’s victory enough.

“I'm going to get that gag off, if you're okay with me touching you,” he soothes. “Once that’s gone you might feel a bit better.” Lifting his hand, he twists it to show her his nails, and says, “I don’t want to cut you, but these are pretty sharp so try not to wiggle. It okay for me to take that off?”

A pause, and then the girl nods emphatically, making muffled noises. Kurama chuckles a little, reaching out, and she goes determinedly still. “Here goes,” he warns her, then tips her head slightly to the side, slides a claw up under the rough twine, and presses carefully. It takes a moment, and a bit more pressure than he’d like, but with one or two cautious sawing motions the threads part. Kurama unwinds them from her head, then helps her get the wad of cloth out of her mouth.

At the same time, the ANBU shifts around behind her, pulling out a kunai to slice through the ropes around her arms and legs. “You’re a brave kid, aren’t you?” he asks cheerfully, though his hands are gentle as he starts to massage her wrists. “I've seen big bad jounin who would be a wreck right now.”

“I didn’t like them,” the girl says, and if her voice trembles a little, if a few more tears spill, Kurama’s sure it can be overlooked. “They were mean and rude and—and—”

Her mouth trembles dangerously, and Kurama knows the warning signs well enough to lean in. He’s about to try for a joke, see if he can comfort her, but his hair swings forward and her eyes are on it instantly. She reaches out to catch a handful, and says almost wonderingly, “It’s the same color as my favorite crayon.”

The ANBU makes a sound like he’s swallowing laughter, sliding back around to crouch next to Kurama. “Yeah,” he agrees brightly, ignoring the warning look Kurama shoots him, and pats Kurama on the head. “It’s as red as a rose, isn’t it, Naho-chan? Just like something in a fairy tale!”

Konoha shinobi or not, Kurama is going to _murder_ him.

But it makes Naho giggle a little as she crawls forward, practically into Kurama’s lap. “I like fairy tales!” she declares. “My mom used to tell the best ones ever!”

Past tense, Kurama thinks, and it’s something he’s used to, seeing children after the death of a parent, but—

She has blue eyes just like Naruto, and it’s hard to bear.

Maybe that’s why it’s easy to wrap his arms around her as he shifts back to sit in the dirt, pulling her more securely into his lap.

“Does that make you knights?” she asks, one hand still in Kurama’s hair, though she keeps looking between him and the ANBU.

“I don’t see why not,” the younger man says cheerfully, and nudges Kurama with one pointy elbow. “Right?”

Kurama huffs, batting the limb away. “I'm not a knight,” he retorts, but makes the mistake of glancing down. Wide blue eyes are staring up at him, entreating, and it’s a little like getting hit with Kakuzu’s lightning all over again. Kurama’s mouth opens of its own volition, and he says, “But you're definitely a princess, aren’t you?”

The ANBU rolls his eyes, even as Naho gives Kurama a truly gutting look of quiet sadness. “You don’t want to be my knight?” she asks plaintively.

Sage, Kurama is not equipped to deal with this. Naruto would be laughing his ass off right now, Kurama thinks with a sigh, and it hurts, like a crippling blow. But it’s bearable, if gutting. “I could be,” he answers, glancing at the sun that’s just starting to rise and then turning south. “But I think I’d rather be a monster.”

He can't quite tell if that statement’s a lie; this is Naruto's body, and as much as he’d prefer Naruto to still be the one in it, if that’s out of the question Kurama would rather it be in his own possession—and the irony of that statement makes him want to laugh bitterly—than Kaguya’s.

Naho wrinkles her nose. “Don’t monsters eat princesses?” she asks skeptically.

“Well, normally _,_ but you're a  _special_  princess,” Kurama counters, tapping her lightly on the tip of the nose. “You’ve got powerful monster-taming abilities to make me your friend. ‘Sides, I think the ANBU over there would be a lot better at the whole knight thing than I would.”

“He’s right!” the ANBU agrees, immediately offering Naho a smile. “And really, the _best_ princesses are the ones who can tame monsters _and_ have knights, don’t you think?”

Naho mulls it over for a moment, then nods decisively. “You're my knight,” she tells the ANBU, and then turns to smile up at Kurama. “And you can be my monster and make all the bad people go away! As long as you're still my friend, I don’t mind.”

Blue eyes just aren’t fair, Kurama thinks with an internal sigh, and pats Naho’s head. “No worries,” he tells her gently. “I’ll be your friend for as long as you need me.”

Satisfied, Naho puts her head down on his shoulder, one arm curled around his neck. The thumb on her other hand is inching towards her mouth, but Kurama isn’t going to say anything; he’s hardly going to deny her what small bits of comfort she can find. Gently rubbing her back, he rises to his feet, and watches a touch warily as the ANBU mirrors him.

“Thank you,” the younger man says simply, and he offers Kurama a smile too, though there's something dark behind his eyes as they flicker across the blood-splattered campsite. “I appreciate the help. Uchiha Shisui.”

It takes effort not to flinch away, not to step back and let loose the growl that’s rumbling up in his chest. Still, Kurama can't stop himself from stiffening faintly, and he knows the boy—the _Uchiha_ —catches it. “Clearly,” he bites out, all too aware of Naho in his arms, “you didn’t need my help.”

Shisui doesn’t argue this, though he tips one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “Maybe not,” he agrees easily. “But she needed your help. Any chance you're headed towards Konoha? I can take her myself, but two people will make things easier.”

Kurama eyes him incredulously. “You don’t even _know_ me,” he points out. “And you want me to _travel_ with you? With a _recovered hostage_?”

“Of course!” Shisui says cheerfully, undaunted. He waves a hand, fingers curled to imitate claws, and adds, “That was really cool, you know? With the shockwave and tearing throats out with your bare hands and all. Besides, you have no idea who she is, right?”

“I'm Naho!” the girl interjects, and tugs lightly on the handful of Kurama’s hair she’s still gripping.

Shisui laughs, reaching out to tap her lightly on the nose. “And you're a princess,” he agrees without hesitation. “The best princess, even.”

Naho beams like this is the best thing she’s heard, though she doesn’t loosen her grip on Kurama.

“For the record,” Shisui says, glancing back up at Kurama with a faint smile, “You are _terrifying_ and I definitely wouldn’t want to meet you in a dark alley, but the princess likes you and you don’t seem to like kidnappers, so I figure we’re probably okay. And I bet I can take you.”

Kurama growls, and Shisui has a good three inches on him, but he steps right into the younger man’s space with a glare. “You could _try_ ,” he invites, baring his teeth. It’s definitely not a smile.

Shisui blinks, and his gaze drops from Kurama’s eyes to his mouth to his hands where they're still holding Naho, and then he swallows hard. “Right,” he squeaks, and Kurama hasn’t heard a pitch that high from a grown man since the last time Naruto sparred with Sakura and she kneed him in the balls. “Um. Yes. Take me. You, uh. Definitely. That’s absolutely a thing that could happen.”

Humans, Kurama decides, are _really fucking weird_.


	7. How it could have happened - Minato/Kushina/Kurama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurmaa lands in Minato and Kushina's time, and accidentally a threesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a conversation with Holly regarding crazy Kurama pairings after I posted the last snippet, wherein I told her to stop and she escalated with [this amazing piece of ridiculousness](http://redhothollyberries.tumblr.com/post/159279137919/for-blackkatmagics-fic-reverse-kurama-is).

Clearly coming to this time period was a mistake.

All right, Kurama doesn’t mean that. Well. He doesn’t _entirely_ mean that. Landing in a place where Naruto isn’t even a thought yet was gutting, but he’s doing better.

He’s not going to pretend that saving Obito and offing Madara didn’t play a very large part in that.

Still, as many perks as landing when he did has provided, _this_ is one part he doesn’t think he’s ever going to get used to: Kushina, bursting into _their_ home, beaming in a way that definitely means trouble, with a large cloth-wrapped package in her arms, and throwing herself at him the moment she sees him.

Kurama has learned by now that if he doesn’t catch her she’ll just tackle him to the floor and sit on him, which is hell on his dignity, so he yelps, drops the pile of scrolls pilfered from the library, and opens his arms just in time for Kushina to collide with his chest, loop her arms around his neck, and swing them into an incredibly awkward dance. Her package hits the floor with the soft thump of cloth, and she laughs brightly.

“Kurama!” she cheers, like it’s been days since they last saw each other instead of a handful of hours. “You're here! I got you something!” And, just to be a brat, she reaches up and straightens out the ridiculous fox hat Minato brought home yesterday. The man had honest to the fucking Sage _pouted_ when Kurama tried to leave it on the dresser this morning, so Kurama’s been wearing it all day.

(And, if it reminds him vaguely of Naruto's dumb sleeping hat with its ridiculous eyes and stupid pompom, well. That’s his business and no one else’s.)

With a growl, Kurama knocks Kushina's hand away, but she just laughs and leans in to kiss his cheek instead. Kurama flushes, still not quite able to help it even now, but a moment later Kushina's hands go straight for the sash of his shirt and he yelps again.

“Sage damn it, woman, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snaps, trying to fend her off, but Kushina is faster; she hooks a foot behind his ankle, sweeps his feet out from under him, and follows him as he falls, landing astride his hips with a predator’s grin.

“Come on, Kurama, don’t you want to try it on?” she asks slyly, and Kurama doesn’t need almost fifteen years of living in her soul to see the spark of wickedness in her eyes.

“You're a menace,” he tells her, rolling his eyes, and Kushina laughs and doesn’t deny it. Casting a glance at the thing she brought home, Kurama judges size and weight, and then levels his former jinchuuriki with a flat look. “It’s that yukata you were cooing over in the market yesterday, isn’t it? With the kitsune and the star-ball?”

“Of course,” Kushina says shamelessly, and this time when nimble fingers tug at his sash Kurama doesn’t try to stop them. “I think you’ll look good in blue, you know?”

Kurama almost tells her that he’s used to wearing it, because Sasuke was secretly a possessive bastard who liked to see Naruto in his clan’s colors, but manages to stop the words before they actually emerge. Kushina knows what he is, knows he’s in the body of one of her descendants—and wasn’t that a fun conversation, when one of Kurama’s biggest tripping points in this train wreck of a relationship was _it’s uncomfortably like incest, please stop_ and he then _had to explain that_ , not that it worked to deter them—but he’s been sitting on the knowledge of just how soon the future goes to shit without intervention. No need to bring that up when everything is already working itself out.

“You're ridiculous,” is what he settles on instead, because that certainly can't be overstated. Kushina just gives him a cheeky grin, pulling the two halves of his shirt apart and shoving it down his shoulders as much as she can while he’s still lying on it. Then she pauses, looking down at him, and something sparks in her face.

“You’re really pretty,” she says, almost thoughtfully, and sits back on his hips as she tilts her head to study him. One hand traces down the center of Kurama’s chest, then splays out over the muscles there, and Kurama can't stop his breath from catching.

Before he can say anything, though, the door opens. Instantly, there's a loud, startled squawk, and Minato trips over the wrapped yukata, arms pinwheeling, and only just catches himself as he cries, scandalized, “What are you _doing_? It’s _mid-morning_!”

Kushina rolls her eyes and blows a strand of hair out of her face. “Oh, stick a sock in it, pretty boy. People have sex in the morning, too, you know.” She grins at Kurama, all mischief and heat, and leans down to kiss him, slow and deep. Kurama makes a sound before he can help it, one clawed hand sliding into her hair to hold her in place, the other closing around her hip.

“Really good sex, even,” Kushina adds as they break apart, and it’s faintly breathless in a way that makes Kurama’s heart skip and stumble into a faster beat.

Minato whimpers.

“What do you think?” Kushina asks brightly, grinning at Kurama. “Should we fuck with the hat on, or on top of the yukata? Or—we could do _both_!”

“No,” Kurama tells her flatly. “There's no fucking way I'm having sex with either of you while _anyone_ is wearing this stupid hat.”

“Hey!” Minato protests, but he’s already tripping out of his sandals and dropping to the floor next to them. “I thought you _liked_ it!”

That tone promises the return of his pout, and really, Kurama would do just about anything to keep that from happening. He reaches up, gets a hand in Minato's hair, and drags him down into a kiss that’s filthy enough to distract him for a good long while.

Kushina laughs at them, eyes hot, but she pulls Kurama’s hat off and drops it to the side before leaning in to give Minato a kiss of her own, so Kurama supposes she can be forgiven.


	8. How it could have happened - Kisame/Obito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an ask regarding possible dimension travel after chapter 77: Maybe they ended up in AU Suna. Or Suna 13 years into the past. Ooh! Or Suna when Obito was a kid and now a la Backslide Obito can go save Rin and BABY OBITO can pull a Naruto on big Obito and be all smiling sunshine. Obito's horrified face if he realized he was back in time and had to prevent the future-- like Kurama's but worse because it's Obito and he never asked for this. At least he's got Kisame with him though! (And baby Kisame! Minato! 26yo Obito in past Konoha!!) Kat consider. What if they don't even find out it's the Wrong time until the boondocks of Suna are terraformed into Eden and they're so proud of themselves but then fucking Rasa or some shit pops up like "what are you doing to my desert" Just. Obito's shock and horror and panic attacks (as Kisame's eyes light up with desperate hope because he can *save* his comrades) and Kisame pats Obito's back and is his support. So they fuck off, win a civil war in mist and ignore Konoha until they cant. Obito vs cave Madara!

“Almost done,” Kisame says cheerfully, the basket creaking as he hefts it onto his shoulder. Obito follows the sound of it for a moment before he uses his staff to push up from his seat and dusts his hands off.

“You got those apples?” he asks, shaping a Snake seal with one hand and letting the low thrum of Mokuton slide up through the soles of his feet to paint a picture of their surroundings. Usually he doesn’t bother, but there’s enough low-hanging branches and fallen fruit to make things a little treacherous right now, and he’s already tripped three times this morning.

A big hand catches his elbow, then slides down to lace their fingers, and Kisame chuckles. “I got them,” Kisame confirms, matching Obito's steps as they head towards the half-buried road that leads to the nearest village. “How long do you think until someone gets curious where all of this is coming from and follows us back?”

Obito snorts, because he would have said a week ago, but apparently the people around here are a lot more restrained than the last ones. “I don’t know, but hopefully soon. Everything is growing on its own now, and we should probably move on before someone gets curious.”

Kisame chuckles agreeably, shifting his burden with a creak of wicker, and says, “Edge of the road is here.”

Obito steps over it without missing a beat, the vitality of their stretch of transformed land fading away now that he’s out of range of the roots. He could keep his sense of it going, but it’s too much effort when they’re just walking, and Kisame's used to guiding him by now.

“We’re going to need new kunai at some point,” he points out, thinking a little wistfully of the masses of weapons he had stored in the Kamui dimension. Kakashi’s now, if he ever learns to use Kamui well enough to access them. “Those bandits almost cleaned me out.”

Kisame's laugh is loud and carefree. “You mean you cleaned out the bandits with your kunai. If we’re moving on soon, I’ll see about finding a weapon shop somewhere. Wherever we stop next might be even smaller than this place.”

“If we’re going to keep following the underground river, we might have to set up in the middle of nowhere again,” Obito points out, and can't fight a faint frown. The river makes it easy to establish the plants and pull up the water they need, but too much distance from Wind Country’s tiny towns means they either have to rely on passing merchant trains or that Kisame has to spend days trekking to the nearest settlement.

It’s times like these that Obito realizes he never quite appreciated the distances involved in travel before he lost Kamui.

There's a thoughtful hum, and Kisame squeezes his hand. “I’ll check the maps when we get back,” he promises. Then a frown comes into his voice as he adds, “Might be nice to get away from things again. I don’t like it when people stampede through the trees and crush your flowers.”

“Well, they’ll definitely never do it again,” Obito says dryly, and really, no one needs to know that the mysteriously disappearing bandits people keep whispering about usually end up as fertilizer for the gardens. It’s all the same to the plants, anyway.

There's a sound of warm amusement from his side, and Kisame gently tugs him just a little closer, until their shoulders are practically pressed together. “We’re getting faster at this. Pretty soon we can move on to another river, maybe finish this half of the desert before the year’s out.”

Obito isn’t quite that optimistic, but he just huffs rather than deny Kisame's words. They’ve covered a good portion of Wind Country already, and while they’ve stayed as far from people as possible except when it’s necessary, Obito would like to think he’s heard a few less children crying about being hungry. He remembers what that was like, when missions weren’t enough to pay for food and equipment and he had to choose between them, and being able to fix something like that—

Well. It’s just—it’s good, that’s all.

He’s just opening his mouth to suggest that they actually take some time to themselves in the village, maybe find somewhere that sells food and have a hot meal they don’t have to cook themselves for once, when there's a loud cry ahead of them. Kisame goes still, every inch of his body suddenly alert, and Obito can feel the glance the swordsman shoots him.

“Go,” he says, and with a thump the massive basket hits the ground as Kisame vanishes. Obito steadies himself with his staff as the air swirls around him, then checks how many shuriken he has up his sleeves. Not as many as he’d like—he wasn’t exaggerating about the bandits practically wiping out his supply—but there is an exploding tag he’d missed the last time he checked, so that’s a nice plus.

A necessary one, it seems, because the sound of swiftly approaching footsteps is clear. Obito scowls, because of _course_ they're headed right for him, but he doesn’t try to evade them—pointless, given his eyes—just tips his head to listen carefully. Three sets, two ahead and one in pursuit, and one of the former is limping heavily. They don’t seem to have noticed him yet, and the lack of wind-borne sand means he’s probably behind a dune where the road curves. But they’re getting closer, and he’s going to have to make a choice about whether to step in very soon.

“Please!” That’s a man’s voice, hoarse and desperate. “Just leave me and go!”

“Never!” A woman, fierce and determined. There's a hiss of a blade being drawn, a thump as the pair stops, and she says, “We have to face him.”

“Him? Are you kidding? He’s Konoha's best!” the man protests, and Obito suddenly has a very, very, _very_ bad feeling about this. But—

But.

He promised Rin he’d try, and keep trying. Terraforming a desert to give Suna equal footing with the other villages is all well and good, but this is a hell of a lot more immediate.

“Fuck,” he mutters, pulls the exploding tag from his wide sleeves, and calls up his chakra. It seeps into the ground, not quite shaped into a jutsu, but with the potential in waiting, and Obito lets it spread, seeping out in a wide radius. So different from the upfront, immediate way he used to fight, but he’s had over a year to adjust by now, and it’s gotten easier. A breath as he focuses, picking out bits of motion, and—

There. Two people, braced back to back, a third approaching at a shinobi’s pace. There's a flicker of chakra in the air, sharp-edged and tasting of ozone, and Obito spins on his heel and _leaps_. A burst of chakra carries him up and over the dune, no showy flips to disorient him like most shinobi use, and he flips the tag up and flings it out hard. No visible Mokuton, because that will _definitely_ get back to Kurama and he’d rather not be hunted down, but as the tag detonates, hurling masses of sand into the air, he uses the network of rapidly-growing roots beneath the surface to show him where to land. The pair are on his left, the Konoha shinobi still approaching, but slower now, and Obito picks his spot, hopes he’s timed it right, and lands. He spins around, staff flashing out, and metal slams into it with a clang that reverberates up through his arms.

There's a moment of startled silence, and then a voice that’s far too close for comfort says, “You're not a Suna nin.”

The woman behind Obito drags in a ragged breath, but Obito can't spare any attention for her if he wants to win this without his trump card. “Neither are you,” he retorts, trying to add up the pieces. A Konoha nin chasing a pair of Suna nin? He’d thought that after Kurama’s little jaunt around the Nations, scooping up jinchuuriki, Suna and Konoha had more or less mended fences. Unless someone here is a missing-nin, them being enemies doesn’t make sense.

There's a chuckle, light and honestly amused. “Well, no, but that’s obvious,” the man says, and Obito feels a flicker of irritation that he tries to tamp down, because _no it’s not_. Not to _him_. “You, though. I don’t recognize you.”

Thank fuck for that, Obito thinks, and snorts. He takes a careful step back, finding his footing, and then braces himself, listening carefully. Mokuton is good for sensing movement, but often a person’s body gives them away before they even shift their feet. “I'm no one,” he says flatly. “But these sound like nice people, and I’d like to know why you're chasing them.”

There's a pause, and the man in front of him takes a breath. It’s a familiar sound, in through the nose and out through the mouth, carefully testing. Obito heard Kakashi do it on tracking missions when they were children, taking in scents. Maybe an Inuzuka man, then?

“They have something I need,” the man says finally. “A scroll.”

Couriers, then, Obito decides, tightening his grip on his staff. That raises the odds their pursuer is a missing-nin, but it’s hard to imagine an _Inuzuka_ going rogue. “Well, you're just going to have to make do without it,” Obito says, and damn it, where is Kisame? If he’s drawing out another fight just to make the enjoyment of it last a little longer, Obito is going to kick his ass. “Because they're going to run along back to Suna, and you're going to turn around and leave.”

The man chuckles again, still light and amused, like he thinks Obito is _joking_. Are you going to make me?” he asks, and that tone is almost _flirtatious_. “I'm not usually one to take orders well, but I can make an exception for someone as pretty as you if we can come to an understanding.”

Kisame needs to get here _yesterday_ , Obito decides, strangling his annoyance.

“We can't—” the woman starts, but there’s a clink of reinforced gloves colliding, and the man hisses, “We _must_! Think of the mission. Think of _Sasori_.”

Obito turns his head towards them before he can stop himself, but—no. They must have given their child the same name, that’s all. Of course that’s it.

“Go,” he tells them, and turns back towards the man, bringing his staff up parallel to the ground. It blocks the path nicely, and he steps squarely in front of the Suna shinobi as they scramble away.

“Thank you, stranger,” the woman says over her shoulder, quiet and desperate, and then with a whisper of sand and chakra they're gone, a shunshin carrying them away.

“You know,” the man offers, amusement un-faded, “that was sweet of you, but I do have a mission. If I have to track them down after I deal with you, so be it.”

Mission? But that can't be right. Not unless Konoha is trying for another war by intercepting couriers, and Obito doesn’t think Kushina would be stupid enough to let them.

“You say that like you're going to make it past me,” he challenges, and hears the faintest heavier inhale. When the man lunges, he’s already moving, sweeping the end of his staff around in a blinding spray of sand, then ducking low, kicking out at the man’s ankles. There's a flicker of fast-moving air as he flips over Obito's foot, but Obito reverse the staff with a jerk and catches him in the side, punching the air out of his lungs with a wheeze. A staggering step and he tracks it back, follows without hesitating and slams the length of wood around, aiming for the man’s skull.

“Well,” the man says, right behind him. “You're pretty good with that. Not just a wandering monk after all, are you?”

Instantly, Obito whirls, swings lower this time, and is rewarded by the feeling of the metal-capped end scraping cloth. “Do I _look_ like a monk to you?” Obito snaps, ducks a hiss of metal through the air right where his head used to be, and dives and rolls under a high kick. A moment of disorientation as he rises, but he covers with a trio of shuriken, hears one deflected by a blade, and wonders if he can risk a fire jutsu. Better not to—fire affinities are most common in Konoha, after all, and he’d rather not get marked as an Uchiha—but he might not be given a choice if he keeps failing to land a hit.

A step, a little heavier than normal, and Obito feels it the moment the chakra bursts. He dives out of the way again, feeling every hair stand up as the Raiton just misses him, and all he can think for a moment is _Kakashi_ but that _can't_ be right. And maybe it’s the desperation that gives him speed, but he hears a footfall closing in and spins, fast and focused. His staff slams into a shin, earning a stumble, and then Obito ducks low, steps close, grabs an arm that comes flying up to block. He turns, pulling the man off balance, and then throws his weight to the side, toppling them both.

The man is good, but Obito regularly wrestles with Kisame, who outweighs him by a solid sixty pounds and is almost a foot taller. Obito has him pinned in a moment, arms locked behind his back and the sharpened blade on the tip of the staff pressed against his throat. Obito takes a moment to get his breath back, then hesitates. He doesn’t want to kill the man, can't bring himself to with the thought of Rin watching when he promised to do better, but he can't let him go, either, or he’ll just take off after the couriers again. They're at least a day’s swift travel from Suna, and Obito doesn’t want to risk letting him go before then when he has no idea as to his skills.

From beneath him, there's a grunt, and then a sound like the man is spitting out sand. “You know, most people buy me dinner first,” he says conversationally.

To his horror, Obito can feel his face getting hot. “Shut _up_ ,” he hisses. “I could slit your throat right now.”

The Konoha nin chuckles. “The fact that you haven’t already means you're probably not going to. Besides, I think your main reason for picking a fight was letting those two chuunin get away. You don’t want to kill me.”

“Killing you would be _easy_ ,” Obito retorts, and lets a flicker of anger into his voice to prove his words. “I _want_ to, but I won't. I don’t need to.”

There's a flare of chakra from the other side of the dune, and Obito lifts his head as the man under him stiffens. “Over here,” Obito calls, pitching his voice just loud enough to carry, and a moment later familiar footsteps are approaching, heavy enough that Obito can tell Samehada is out ready.

“You okay?” Kisame asks as he rounds the hill. “There's something strange about—” He breaks off sharply, sucking in a breath, and stops.

“Kisame?” Obito asks, not sure whether to be worried or annoyed.

“You,” Kisame says, and the light tone has been stripped from his voice, which is enough to make Obito tense. “You're the White Fang.”

“Well, yes,” the man under Obito—young, _years_ younger than the resurrected shinobi Obito last spoke to—says, sounding faintly puzzled. “It’s not like I was trying to _hide_ it.”

Fuck, Obito thinks vehemently. He feels Kisame approaching, and hears the hiss of ninja wire unspooling. A moment later, Kisame has Sakumo's hands bound, and Obito grabs the swordsman’s elbow, levering himself to his feet. He staggers a step, braces himself, and turns, just in time to hear Kisame ask, “You don’t recognize me?”

“Should I?” Sakumo asks politely, and yes, yes he _definitely_ should, because Kisame fed him when he was a prisoner, spoke to him and Kushina both, fought Sakumo in the pass. But—

“Kisame?” he asks, and it comes out more sharply than intended.

Kisame doesn’t take offense, just curls a hand around his arm and asks steadily, “You have a son, don’t you?”

There's a pause, like Sakumo is trying to work out this angle of questioning. “…I do,” he finally says, and there's a faint smile in his voice. “The smartest toddler you’ve ever met, and an absolute _terror_.”

Toddler.

 _Toddler_.

Oh gods.

“Well,” Kisame says, almost lightly enough to fool Obito into thinking he means it. “That explains the old uniforms.”

“Old?” Sakumo sounds bewildered. “Sarutobi-sama just updated these. They're new.” A shift of sand as he sits up, and he makes a quiet sound, somewhere between surprise and chagrin. “You're a _blind_ monk?”

“I'm not a monk at all!” Obito growls.

“No celibacy vows, then?” Sakumo jokes, and Kisame makes a quiet, offended sound and takes a step closer.  

Obito is not having any of this. He puts a hand on Kisame's chest to stop him, distracted by trying to figure out just how this could have happened. It’s not like there are a lot of options, unfortunately.

“Kamui,” he says, and feels Kisame's attention shift to him. “That last jump with Kamui. Something must have gone wrong when my eyes overloaded, and it dumped us in an alternate universe that’s running eighteen years behind ours.”

“ _What_?” Sakumo says, clearly bewildered.

“Well,” Kisame manages, chuckling faintly. “That’s not what I was expecting.” A pause, and Obito can feel his breath shudder out. “That means…Kiri. It’s…”

Still there. Still his Kiri. Not yet the Bloody Mist, or only just starting to take on the name. The Cypher Squad is still alive, Fuguki hasn’t been revealed as a traitor yet, and there's a chance to turn things around.

“Any plans to untie me?” Sakumo asks, breaking the tense silence. “I don’t mind being at the mercy of a beautiful man, but it sounds like you have other things to do.”

Oh gods. this is _Kakashi’s father._ Kakashi’s father is _flirting with him_. Obito doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“No,” he says flatly, leveling the pointed end of his staff at the man. “No way. You are going to give me _nightmares_ , stop that now. And…Kisame?” He turns to his partner, raising a brow, and after a moment of hesitation Kisame sighs, somewhere between sheepish and apologetic.

“I’d like to go,” he says, and catches Obito's free hand in his. “But if you want to stay, Obito—”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Obito tugs on his hand, and with a quiet chuckle Kisame leans down, kissing him gently. “Fine, we’ll go take over Kiri. You’ll be Mizukage and I can be your trophy wife. And beat Madara to a pulp the minute he pokes his nose outside of that cave of his.”

“I'm sorry? Kiri? _Madara_?” Sakumo says, slightly more insistent this time, and is summarily ignored.

Kisame laughs. “You’ll make the _best_ trophy wife,” he says agreeably. “And him?”

Obito assumes he means Sakumo, and he hesitates. Because on the one hand, Kakashi. On the other, if he’s right about the timeline those were Sasori’s parents he just saved, and that’s one disaster averted without even trying.

“…We’ll take him with us halfway,” he offers.

“Only if he stops flirting,” Kisame says, almost a sulk.

Obito rolls his eyes, reaches up, and pulls the big blue idiot down for another kiss. “ _You_ ,” he says firmly, “have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

It’s not quite _I love you_ , but it’s probably the closest Obito can bring himself to right now, and by the catch of Kisame's breath, he knows that too. Another kiss, and this time he can feel Kisame's smile against his mouth. “Mizukage, hm?” he asks as they pull apart. “I think I could do okay.”

“You’ll be _amazing_ ,” Obito tells him, and Kisame laughs bashfully and kisses him again.

“What's even going _on_?” Sakumo asks plaintively, but neither of them comes up for air long enough to tell him.


	9. How it could have happened - Genma/Raido/Kurama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For an ask: In chapter 25 I think of reverse Kurama thinks for a moment of taking Genma with him. Do you ever think of doing a au of it. I just imagine all the shenanigans they would get into.

Genma wakes with a throbbing headache, the vaguely nauseating lurch of a mild concussion, and the scent of rain and wet earth heavy in his nose.

It’s nothing at all like the sea-and-stone scent of Whirlpool Country that he remembers from before, and the air clings like a damp shroud in a way that sea air doesn’t. There's no sense of Kakashi’s chakra, either, familiar and crackling like lightning. Instead, it’s like someone lit a bonfire right next to his head—chakra _burns_ , as brilliant as standing at the heart of a wildfire.

Taking a breath, Genma opens his eyes, and is immediately confronted by orange-gold and green.

“Kurama-nii!” the little girl calls gleefully, grin wide and bright. “Kurama-nii, he’s awake! Are you going to torture him?”

“Are you going to eat him?” a redheaded boy, even younger than the girl, asks solemnly, leaning over Genma's other side. Eerily pale eyes blink at Genma for a moment, and then the boy looks up. “Shukaku says you should eat him.”

“Shukaku is about ten cards short of a full deck,” a familiar voice says dryly, and a dark-skinned arm loops around the little boy and scoops him up. “Sweetheart, I thought you were supposed to be emptying out your pack.”

“But laying clothes out is _boring_ ,” the girl complains, even as she scrambles up. “They're not _that_ wet.”

“If you don’t stick them by the fire, they're going to molder,” Uzumaki Kurama says, crouching down even as he boosts the redhead—the Kazekage's child, Ichibi jinchuuriki, _highly_ unstable, Genma remembers from the report, and can't feel anything but bemused—up to cling to his shoulder. The boy latches on like a monkey, apparently perfectly content, and Kurama definitely doesn’t seem to mind, hardly even notices as he looks Genma over a little warily.

“Sorry,” he says, on the verge of gruff, but there's a flicker in his eyes that makes Genma certain that he means it. “Freak Squad was incoming, and it was put you down or get the kids the hell out of there.”

Given that _dropping him_ was hardly a time-consuming chore, Genma calls bullshit, and lets his raised eyebrow speak volumes as he pulls himself up to sit. Kurama has the grace to look faintly abashed, if not regretful, and he rolls his eyes a bit and huffs.

Well. There's nothing to be done about it now, clearly, since Genma gets the feeling that Whirlpool Country is far behind them. He looks Kurama over, taking in the ragged clothes, the bare feet, the weary look edging his eyes, and tips his head in acceptance.

“I feel like I picked a fight with a mountain,” he says, keeps it light so that Kurama will know he’s joking even as he puts a hand up to rub at the lump on his skull.

Thankfully, it’s only humor that crosses Kurama’s sharp, almost pretty features. He chuckles softly, reaching out to gently tip Genma's head forward. It’s a careful motion, and Genma only just feels the touch of claws against his scalp as Kurama shifts his hair. His bandana is still in his pocket, he realizes with something of a start. And—maybe it’s fitting, that Genma took off his hitai-ate before he helped Kurama, but…

Namikaze Minato was Genma's Hokage, far more than the Sandaime. Minato was the one he loved, the one he would have given his life for in a heartbeat. And it was Minato he was serving, letting Kurama go. There's no way Minato would ever have kept Naruto away from his last living relative, even if Naruto _wasn’t_ his son. What could Genma do but honor that, when everything pointed to Kurama being benevolent, rather than an enemy?

“A jinchuuriki, not a mountain,” Kurama corrects dryly, letting Genma go to sink back on his heels, though dark red eyes linger on him. “It’s probably the next best thing, though, honestly.”

Genma grins, because he knew Kushina, and he’d definitely agree with that. Before he can say as much, though, there's a scuffle off to the side, and with a cheer Naruto goes tumbling head over heels, a small white fox in his arms. They're wrestling, Genma realizes with a start, and—

Six years, and he’s never seen Naruto laugh like that before. Like Kushina, loud and bright, entirely uncontained.

Kurama growls under his breath, more exasperation than anger, and practically dives over Genma, grabbing for the boy, and Genma looks, takes in what’s alarmed the man, and sees the edge of a cliff uncomfortably close. With a curse, he grabs Kurama’s shirt, anchoring him, and Kurama snatches Naruto and the fox up a bare foot from the edge.

“Don’t _do_ that, kit,” he huffs, even as Genma reels him back in, heartbeat still stuttering in his chest at the near miss.

“Sorry, Kurama-nii,” Naruto says abashedly, offering up a sheepish grin that’s entirely Minato and makes Genma's breath catch a little.

“Oops,” the fox agrees cheerfully, wiggling out of Naruto's hold. “We’ll be more careful, Kurama-sama.”

Kurama rolls his eyes, but he sets Naruto on his feet, then lets Gaara slide down to join him. “We’re going to be up here for _one night_. Please try not to die, okay, brats?”

“Are we giving you gray hairs?” a blonde preteen asks solemnly, looking Kurama over with sharp eyes. “Anzu said we were, but I don’t see any.”

“If anyone could, it would be you four,” Kurama says dryly. “But no. I'm _fine_.”

Yugito eyes him for one more moment, then nods, apparently accepting that, and says, “Naruto, Gaara, come help me lay out your clothes so they’ll dry. You don’t want to be wearing wet things tomorrow, do you?”

“Aww,” Naruto complains, though by the way he bounces over to her side, it’s probably not nearly as much of a problem as he’s making it seem. Gaara casts one more look at Genma, faintly cautious, and then follows.

Genma watches them for a moment, taking in the small cave they're all camped out in. outside, rain is sheeting down, and grey clouds obscure everything, though Genma can't tell if the cloud-cover is particularly low or if they're up high. No defining characteristics, beyond the rain, and at this time of year that could mean they're in Ame, Grass, southern Lightning Country, or anywhere near the eastern sea.

He glances over at Kurama to find the man watching him closely, still sitting next to him with one leg bent and an elbow looped around it. Definitely not the pose of an enemy, or even someone suspicious of Genma's motives, and that’s…strange. Kurama shouldn’t know anything about him, and certainly not enough to mark him as something besides a possible threat.

Then again, Genma supposes that he wouldn’t be conscious anywhere near the kids if Kurama thought he was a threat. Probably would have been killed back in Whirlpool Country, honestly, and it’s not a comforting thought, but it’s still reassuring. Kurama’s doing everything possible to protect the jinchuuriki children, and Genma knows bone-deep that he won't let any harm come to them.

“What’s happening tomorrow?” he asks mildly, carefully leaning back to brace himself against the wall of the cave.

For a long moment Kurama just looks at him, dark red eyes assessing. He looks so much like Kushina, from the shape of his eyes to the angle of his jaw, that it’s a little eerie, but…comforting. Genma's spent the last six years with the only reminder of Kushina being her son, and for all Naruto will likely look like his mother when he gets older, for now his father’s coloring overwhelms it. It’s impossible not to see Minato, when Genma looks at him, so the shadow of Kushina in Kurama’s features is a welcome one.

Raggedly cut red hair sways as Kurama tips his head a little, and his lips tip up in a hint of a smirk. “If I said Kiri, what would you do?”

 _Kiri_? Genma blinks, entirely taken aback, and—he’d honestly been expecting Kurama to say Ame. It would at least make more sense than the Bloody Mist.

Except maybe it wouldn’t, because Kurama’s been hitting all the highlights in his jinchuuriki-acquisition tour, and besides Bee, the only ones he hasn’t visited yet are Yagura and Kiri’s second human sacrifice.

“…You're going to take four kids into _Kiri_ ,” he says, even so, because the bloody graduation exam might have stopped when he was a kid, but that doesn’t mean Kiri is anything even _vaguely_ close to stable.

Kurama blinks, and then snorts. He curls his legs under him, shifting forward, and says, “You know, most people skip over the fact that they're kids, seeing as they're jinchuuriki too.”

Genma rolls his eyes at the man, because after Genma committing _treason_ for him he should damn well know better. “Most people probably didn’t have to deal with a pregnant Kushina. Believe me, that’s not something I could _forget_.”

The slant of Kurama’s mouth changes, a faintly bittersweet smile crossing his face. “Yeah. She was a terror, wasn’t she?”

“The _biggest_ terror,” Genma says fondly, because Kushina may as well have been a second older sister, and he adored her for everything she was. These last few years have been _torture_ , only being able to involve himself in the barest fringes of Naruto's life, unable to be anything but an invisible watcher most of the time. It hurts, even more so because he _knows_ it’s the exact opposite of what Minato and Kushina would have wanted.

And—

Well. Thinking like that, it’s easy enough to know what to do next. Kurama said he was planning to bring Naruto back to Konoha, and that’s good enough for Genma.

“So,” he says easily, pulling a senbon out of his sleeve and flipping it through his fingers. “What are our plans in Kiri?”

Kurama’s eyes widen, and he looks up at Genma sharply. Genma just grins back, lazy and maybe a little challenging, and watches the realization flicker across that familiar-unfamiliar face.

“Well,” Kurama drawls, “hopefully I’ll be able to find a babysitter. And then I was planning to go punch a goddess in the face. You up for it?”

Raidō is going to _murder him_ , but it’s still nowhere near enough to make Genma back down. He holds Kurama’s gaze, tucks the senbon between his teeth, and smiles. “I did always like to dream big.”


	10. How it could have happened - Genma/Kurama/Raido

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because after the last chapter someone cursed me for the thought of KakaGenRai and, well. Revenge. :D

“ _Genma_ ,” Raidō says in clear exasperation.

Genma gives him his most charming smile, like there aren’t nine jinchuuriki squashed together in the hallway behind him. “Hey, Rai. Any chance the spare bedroom’s still empty?”

Raidō’s faintly horrified gaze slides from Han, massive and looming, to Yagura, still in his Mizukage robes, and then over to Kurama, barefoot and ragged and still sporting a few suspicious dark stains that are probably blood. His or someone else’s is honestly a tossup at this point. His brows rise sharply, a silent question directed right Genma with all the force of his disbelief.

“Oh, don’t mind us,” Rōshi says, and his smile only has passing acquaintance with social niceties, closer to a warning than anything. “Me and Han are just here to make sure Kurama gets under a roof without incident. That squirrely kid said we could bunk with him.”

“Shisui,” Genma clarifies, when Raidō blinks, and he grins at the amusement that flickers across Raidō’s face. That was pretty much his reaction when Shisui stuttered out the offer, because imagining what Uchiha Chiyoha will say when her son drags home those particular strays is enough entertainment for the rest of the year at least.

“I’ll be returning to the inn,” Yagura says, inclining his head more or less politely to Raidō. “And I believe Utakata has found other lodgings as well.”

“You mean he guilted the perverted scarecrow into giving him his couch,” Kurama says dryly, hitching Gaara up a little higher on his hip. Both Gaara and Naruto are almost asleep, with Fū close behind and even Yugito fading, and Genma casts a glance at the girls, leaning together at Kurama’s side, and then levels a meaningful look at Raidō.

Raidō looks back for a long moment, reading everything Genma's trying to say, and then sighs. He smiles, swings the door open, and steps back, because Raidō has the biggest fucking heart of anyone Genma has ever met. “It’s going to be a bit cramped, but I think we can manage. Welcome home, Genma.”

“I'm back,” he answers, slipping up to wrap an arm around Raidō’s neck as Kurama and the kids file past him, and Raidō laughs a little and pulls him into a tight hug.

“Kushina's little brother, really?” he murmurs, almost soundless, right in Genma's ear.

Genma lets him feel the faintly wicked grin he presses into his neck. “Take a good look at him and tell me you _don’t_ want him in our bed,” he breathes in return, and he’s close enough to feel Raidō swallow. When he glances up, Raidō’s looking at Kurama, standing vaguely uncertain and a little wary in the middle of their living room.

A sigh ruffles his hair, and Raidō pinches him lightly in the ribs and steps away, letting the door fall shut. “I think food can wait for the morning,” he says. “Gen, would you get the extra futons out? We should have enough blankets.”

“Fū and I can share,” Yugito says quietly, though her eyes are drooping.

Raidō gives her a kind smile. “That will help, thank you. The spare room is down the hall, second door on your left. The bathroom is across from it.”

“Thank you,” Yugito tells him, and reaches out to tug on Kurama’s sleeve. “Kurama-nii, Fū and I can take them.”

“I—all right.” Kurama still looks slightly lost, but he surrenders the boys to Yugito and Fū, and watches as Yugito leads the small group away.

“Hey,” Genma says gently, reaching out to catch his elbow and tug him around. “We’re all back in Konoha. It’ll work out.”

There's a pause, and then Kurama rolls his eyes, just a little. Just enough to be reassuring. “Yeah, yeah. Because this hellhole has such a great track record when it comes to good luck and everything going right.”

The words don’t have any sort of edge, though, and Genma just snorts, leaning back to raise a brow at Raidō. Raidō hesitates, but nods, and comes around to Kurama’s other side, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll go get the kids settled,” he says. “I can put out an extra futon, but…if you want, there's room in our bed.”

Surprise flickers across Kurama’s face, and he turns sharply, looking from Genma to Raidō and back again. “Room,” he repeats, almost suspicious.

Genma gives him a look. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the fact that we’ve been flirting since Moon Country or I'm going to cry.”

Kurama splutters. “You—you're _taken_! I thought you were just flirting for the hell of it!”

“You can be taken too, if you want,” Raidō points out, because he’s the practical one between them.

“In more ways than one,” Genma agrees cheerfully, mostly for the joy of watching Raidō flush dull red and hiss at him. When Kurama eyes him, he raises his hands peaceably. “Or you can do the taking. We’re not picky.”

With a groan, Raidō puts a hand on top of Genma's head and shoves him down. “I'm _so sorry_ about him,” he tells Kurama. “The invitation is open, but it doesn’t have to be sex. It doesn’t have to be anything.”

Genma bats his hand away, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, but if you want it to be, it _can_. At this point, I think you're family no matter how we slice it, and this is just…benefits.”

“Given the way you leave hallucinogenic senbon on the living room carpet, there have to be _some_ ,” Raidō says, longsuffering and amused in equal measure. When Genma makes a face at him, he laughs a little.

Kurama looks between them for another long moment, hesitating. “I think…something would be nice,” he says, almost warily.

Genma gives him a smile, curling his arm around Kurama’s. “We can manage something,” he agrees.

Raidō shakes his head at them both, then steers them towards the bedroom and gives them a light push. “Go to bed. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“I won't be held accountable for whatever we get up to before you get there,” Genma informs him, and dodges Raidō’s swat with the ease of practice. He gives Kurama his most charming smile, watching the amusement spread across his face, and tugs at his hand. “Come on, it’s an obscenely comfortable bed. You won't ever want to leave it.”

“At this point I probably wouldn’t care if it was made of brick,” Kurama says, but he follows readily, and Genma counts that as a win.


	11. Possible Future - Kurama/Shisui and Tenzo/Shisui universe collision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is both a continuation of Chapter 6 and sequel to a porny one-shot set in that universe (http://archiveofourown.org/works/13811538).
> 
> ALSO!! Mild dub-con due to mistaken identity, in case that's a squick.

Shisui wakes up in an unfamiliar bed.

This is, unfortunately, not as unusual as it probably should be. Kurama’s kids are _exhausting_ , and Shisui just happens to one of their favorite chew toys, so he ends up running himself into the ground trying to keep up with them more often than not. They probably picked him up once he passed out and stuffed him somewhere. Probably somewhere _embarrassing,_ knowing them; Shisui's ben trying hard to cut back on the flailing, since they enjoy it so much, but there's really only so much he can do in the face of four jinchuuriki children and a pint-sized Uzumaki, plus whatever tag-alongs they end up collecting along the way.

Still, it _is_ a little odd that he slept so long. The house is completely quiet around him, washed with shadows cast by the full moon outside, and it’s the peace of deep night, perfect and unbroken and a little eerie. Shisui shivers a little, sitting up, and is incredibly thankful he’s at least still wearing clothes. Fū and Karin seemed enthusiastic about a plan to strip him, but Yugito probably called that off in favor of something subtler and more humiliating. She likes to make other people think she’s the sensible one, but she’s actually a damned _terror_.

Grimacing—because if Kurama was close enough to hear that thought, Shisui is going to _die_ —Shisui slides out of bed, is entirely unable to find a pair of slippers, and resigns himself to walking through the house barefoot. Kurama probably won't mind, seeing as he does it all the time, but _still_.

The door of the old mansion creaks loudly as Shisui slides it open, and he grimaces, _knowing_ that woke someone. Shinobi sleep lightly or they never wake up, and jinchuuriki who have been on the run for years sleep even more lightly than most. Hopefully no one will actually get up and come out, though; Shisui would rather sneak out with his dignity somewhat intact.

Thankfully, no one seems to be stirring as he pads through the kitchen, empty and perfectly clean. There's already a light on in the living room, though, and Shisui blinks, checking the clock. Someone is up _very_ late, and he has to wonder who, and why. There hasn’t really been anything to worry about recently, not that he can think of. Kushina makes a brilliant Hokage, and all the jinchuuriki have settled into the village. Kakashi’s dad apparently eloped with Orochimaru of the Sannin, but ever since his father sent him that letter he’s been more preoccupied muttering about long-lost half-brothers than anything.

Of course, nightmares are always a good reason for shinobi to be up, and Shisui hesitates, but eventually keeps walking. Sometimes a friendly ear helps, or just silent company. He can be either, right now; Tenzō is on a mission, and his mother is staying with friends in River Country for the next month, so he’ll only be going home to an empty house if he leaves now. He can spare the time.

To his surprise, though, it’s  Kurama curled on the main couch with a book, hair tucked behind his ears and yukata loosely belted. It’s showing a _lot_ of dark skin, warm against the deep red cloth, and Shisui has to swallow hard. Tenzō doesn’t mind him looking, looks himself because Kurama is beautiful and it’s hard _not_ too, but…this feels private. Special. Like he’s intruding where he shouldn’t be.

It’s too late to stage a retreat, though. Even as he takes a step back, Kurama glances up, then _smiles_ in a way he normally saves for his kids alone. Setting his book aside, he swings his legs down to the floor and sits up, and says warmly, “Shisui, you're awake.”

No _kid_ , no _brainwash boy_ or _brat_ or any of the other exasperatedly fond nicknames Kurama usually defaults to, and it itches at Shisui's brain like familiar furniture moved one foot to the left. He swallows, doesn’t allow himself to take a step back, because whatever this is it’s still _Kurama_. He might be half of the Kyuubi in human form, but he’s also a friend.

“Sorry to intrude,” he manages, keeping his voice light.

Kurama’s smile takes on an unfamiliar slant, and he rises to his feet, takes three step towards Shisui. “Not in this lifetime,” he says, still warm, with a hint of humor like it’s some kind of inside joke. Then, tipping his head, he narrows his eyes just faintly, and asks, “Everything all right?”

“Yeah,” Shisui says cheerfully, even though there's a warning singing in the back of his skull that it _really fucking isn’t_. “I woke up in the bedroom and saw the light. Thought I could offer some company? Not that you, uh, actually need it, because you seem to have everything under control out here—mmph!”

Kurama. Kurama’s _mouth_. _Kurama’s mouth on his_ , and his tongue, and it’s soft and sweet and _hot_ and he catches Shisui's lower lip between sharp teeth as he pulls back, which is _un-fucking-fair_ because that’s always been one of Shisui's biggest turn-ons. He gasps, but Kurama is already winding an arm around his waist, pulling him right up against his chest as he turns them, and when Shisui goes to push him back his hands slip across a criminally bare and muscular chest where the yukata falls open. It makes Kurama groan, and Shisui has _no fucking idea what to do with that._

He doesn’t have time to decide, either, because Kurama pushes him down onto the couch and follows, settling astride Shisui's hips and planting his hands on the cushions on either side of his head. Shisui opens his mouth to protest, but Kurama kisses him again, deep and so filthy it makes Shisui's _toes_ curl, and then there's a hand at the waistband of Shisui's pants and no _no no_ this is going exactly the way of some of Shisui's fantasies and that’s _not a good thing_.

“Kurama!” he finally manages to get out, though it’s more squeak than anything. He grabs Kurama’s shoulders, pushes him back, and is unspeakably relieved when Kurama actually _goes_. Except then he’s not, because Kurama’s staring at him with hot, heavy-lidded eyes and a _smirk_ and his lips are kiss-bruised, his blood-red hair tangled like it needs fingers in it. This is _not fair_ , and gods, Shisui objects _so hard_.

Sadly, his objection isn’t the only thing that’s so hard right now.

Kurama makes a sound of amusement even as he rocks back, settling _right on top_ of Shisui's cock and making him yelp. “What?” he asks, in that smoky-rough voice that usually accompanies a death threat levied at Kakashi. “If you're worrying about me being sore, stop it already. I _like it_ when you're rough with me, idiot.”

Shisui's brain shorts out and _dies_. Gone, dead, no hope of a reboot, he’s permanently offline, because _Kurama just implied that Shisui fucked him._

This is not the twilight zone. This is some kind of joke. Or a dream. Probably a dream. The kids probably drugged his food. That sounds likely.

“ _What_?” he squeaks, so shrill glass is probably in danger of breaking. With a jerk, he hauls himself out from under Kurama, scrambling back until he collides with the end of the couch, and flails his arms as he tries to meld himself with the fabric. “ _WHAT_?”

At the same moment there's a sound like a snarl, and in a blur of eerily familiar chakra a figure appears right in front of Shisui, kitchen knife pressed flush to his throat. Shisui blinks, only to find himself staring into Kotoamatsukami eyes, just as wide and startled as his own.

“What?” he repeats, more weakly this time.

“Fuck,” Kurama mutters, and chakra flickers and fades as a bijūdama goes dark. Shisui's balls kind of want to crawl back up into his body because he _didn’t notice_ Kurama pull that out, but _fuck_ he’s seen what those can do and it wouldn’t have been pleasant to get hit with one. “All right, who the hell are you? And why do you have the exact same chakra signature as Shisui?”

“I _am_ Shisui!” he protests, and points an accusing finger and half-dressed-him. “Who the hell is that? And why are you saying I _slept_ with you? You're—you're the _Kyuubi no Kitsune_!”

Other-him doesn’t even blink at this, so clearly it’s something he already knows. “Of course I've slept with him!” other-him snaps. “He’s my _boyfriend_!”

Shisui has another moment of complete and utter system failure and can't summon so much as a word.

There's a long moment of silence, and then a snort. Kurama steps around other-Shisui, pushing him back lightly, and puts a hand on Shisui's shoulder. Shisui startles, but before he can jump away Kurama tugs his shirt down. With a yelp, Shisui recoils right off the couch and back onto his feet, throwing his hands up.

“No!” he yelps. “No no no, I _have_ a boyfriend and it’s _not you_ please just _stop that_!”

“Someone _else_?” Other-him sounds equal parts bewildered and offended. “Why the hell would you want anyone else in the _world_?”

Kurama huffs, and his knuckles lightly skim other-Shisui's cheek as he steps past him. “Your shoulder,” he says to Shisui, sounding amused, and tips his head. “That looks like Karin and Fū’s work.”

Shisui glances down, blinks at the massive and intricate seal stretching across his chest, and then promptly groans, dragging his hands through his hair. “ _Fuck_ , this must be what Yugito convinced them to pull. Oh gods, did they throw me into some kind of mirror universe? Is this _hell_?”

“Hey,” Kurama drawls, though he mostly just sounds like he’s laughing at Shisui. He swaggers back to the couch and drops onto the far end, pulling one leg up under him and flashing _way_ too much thigh for Shisui's delicate sensibilities. “Calm down, there's a timed release factor on it. When that runs out it’ll drop you right back where you were.”

That’s…rather easier than Shisui was expecting, given who planned the prank. He gives the seal another wary look, but _he_ certainly can't read it, and—

“Hey!” he squawks, because other-Shisui is currently sinking down in Kurama’s lap like he owns it, head tipped back against Kurama’s shoulder. “Can you _not_?”

“He’s _my boyfriend_ ,” other-Shisui snaps back, slowly, like he thinks Shisui is slow. “If you decided not to hit that, fine, but _clearly_ I have the better taste between us so you can fuck right off.”

“But what about _Kakashi_?” Shisui asks, more than a little desperately. “You know, chased him across the Elemental Countries, decided he was totally down to fuck _the Kyuubi no Kitsune_ like a crazy bastard—”

“ _I_ fucked the Kyuubi no Kitsune!” other-Shisui retorts, looking vaguely horrified. “You think _Kakashi-senpai_ is anywhere _close_ to cool enough to kiss Kurama?”

“Easy,” Kurama interrupts, rolling his eyes. “If you punch yourself I'm obligated to give you grief about it for the rest of the year, and my slate’s already full.” Switching his gaze to Shisui, he tips his head, and asks, “Kakashi?”

Shisui nods, swallowing. **_I_** _fucked the Kyuubi_ keeps ringing in his ears, and he just— _can't_. How did that even _happen_. “You—uh. Other you. Likes him. A lot. So why _me_ here?”

Other-Shisui stiffens a little, pulling away, but Kurama hooks his bent leg around other-Shisui's waist and pulls him back before he can far. “Because you helped me find a lot of things to live for beyond a mission and a brat,” he says, and other-Shisui turns to look at him with a noise Shisui kind of regrets hearing, pushes Kurama back against the arm of the couch and kisses him, hard and deep and desperate.

Shisui hides his eyes and totally doesn’t peek through his fingers.

“Oh _gods_ ,” he complains, horrified and aroused in equal measure and very uncomfortable because of it. “Can you _stop already_?”

“Never,” other-Shisui says, smug and breathless as they separate, and he pulls Kurama’s legs up around his waist, presses up and in, and Kurama doesn’t just flat-out decapitate him for it. He moans instead, low and rumbling and a sound that goes straight to Shisui's cock, and Shisui is abruptly reminded that other-him has apparently fucked Kurama enough that he worries about _the Kyuubi_ getting sore, and that he likes to be _rough_ with Kurama.

Fuck but Shisui is so hard right now, it’s _terrible_.

“Mm.” Kurama breaks the kiss lazily, arms looped around other-Shisui's neck. He casts a glance at Shisui that’s full of fox-mischief and then leans forward, biting a trail up other-Shisui's throat that makes him shiver and gasp. “This seems like too good an opportunity to pass up,” he says slyly, and meets Shisui's eyes as he curls his clawed hands around other-Shisui's ass. “I could have two of you in my bed at the same time.”

Shisui strangles a whimper, but it’s too late. All he can see is Kurama in between two Shisuis, still smiling wickedly but for entirely different reasons. One glance at other-Shisui shows that his thoughts have clearly taken the same path, because he’s bright red and open-mouthed.

“Um,” other-Shisui manages, which is more than Shisui is capable of.

Kurama snickers, bites the underside of other-Shisui's jaw lightly and makes him moan. “I bet I could keep you both occupied until the timer runs down,” he says, and it’s a taunt, makes Shisui's mouth go completely dry and his heart trip into quadruple time. He squeaks, wishes with all his heart that Tenzō was here for moral support, and—

The seal on his chest lights up like a beacon, and the world _shifts_.

Shisui hits the ground flat on his back, all the air knocked from his lungs as he wheezes for breath. There are four faces peering down at him, familiar and reassuring; Fū and Karin look entirely unrepentant, while Yugito looks unimpressed. And, right over Shisui's face, Kurama is scowling at him.

Shisui has never been so happy to fear for his life before.

“Kurama!” he says as soon as his lungs can manage words. “You don’t want to sleep with me, do you?”

“Excuse me?” Kakashi asks, perfectly mild, as he leans over Kurama’s shoulder, and arm sliding around Kurama’s waist with pointed casualness.

“Thank _fuck_ ,” Shisui says happily, and lets his head thump back onto the ground. He can't even bring himself to care that Yugito, Fū, and Karin are all glaring at him, and that Kakashi would be doing the same if he didn’t have a façade to keep up.

That’s going to be a problem for future Shisui. Future Shisui who is not sleeping with Kurama.

Life is good.

(Future Shisui probably won't think so, but oh well.)


End file.
